Bloodroot (restaurant)
restaurant in Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bloodroot was a vegetarian restaurant and feminist bookstore in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was established in 1977 by the Bloodroot Collective with radical and lesbian feminist principles; Bloodroot closed in December 2025. It was one of hundreds of feminist restaurants that existed in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.
History
Bloodroot Collective
Selma Miriam (then Selma Bunks), Sam Stockwell, Betsey Beavan, Noel Furie (then Noel Giordano), and Pat Shea met through the Westport chapter of the National Organization for Women and consciousness raising groups in the 1970s. In 1975, Miriam, Stockwell, Shea, and Beavan operated a cooperative exchange group out of Miriam's house, eventually forming the Bloodroot Collective in 1977. Stockwell left and Furie joined the collective soon after it was formed.
In 2010, Furie and Miriam donated their personal papers and Bloodroot's organizational papers to the Yale University Library. Miriam died in February 2025.
Operations
Bloodroot was located in a residential area, which, according to Miriam, helped the rent stay affordable. This lack of foot traffic caused the restaurant to rely heavily on word of mouth and other forms of advertising to sustain it.
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